Verae's teeth are FINALLY done

For a while we thought her teeth might never get finished .  The ordeal following the loose bridge with her front teeth has been more than we could have imagined.  At first the school told us that it could take 2 months and maybe more to finish a bridge.  We thought that was plenty long, but our visas weren't here and probably wouldn't be for 2 months or so.  We were told it would cost about twice as much to have a regular dentist fix her teeth.  Not having excess funds for this helped us choose this route.

After 3 months and still looking like we would be at least another month, we had to do something else. I started to look for another dentist on the website for our insurance carrier.  I don't think it is the best way to find a dentist so I talked to the temple president and he talked to others to get a recommendation for us.  That night as we were leaving the temple, Verae was talking to a sister who was waiting for her husband. She told her of our dilemma, this sister said she had a great dentist who they had been using for years who was close by.  When her husband came he gave us the office phone and the cell phone number of Dr. Ayoubi.  I called the next morning which was Friday the 14th and was able to get an appointment for Tuesday the 18th of January.  When we saw the dentist he said we could have the teeth all done in 9 days.  We were SO HAPPY and Surprised.  He made us feel special.  He completed the work even with one setback by Thursday the 27th.

Wednesday night New York was pounded again with 15 inches of snow.  Trying to get to the dentist on Thursday morning was another ordeal.  We normally take 2 buses to get there.  After waiting for buses that didn't come, we tried to get a taxi.  The taxis wouldn't stop either.  We were ankle deep in slush in the middle of the street when I finally got a taxi.  The streets were so plugged that it took him 45 min to get close to the dentist office and I paid $17.00.  We then trudged another block in the slush. Within 15 minutes the permanent 6 tooth bridge was in and looks very nice. Then to get home was another 1 and 1/2 hour ordeal waiting for different buses that didn't come. We in desperation tried to get another taxi, which wasn't easy either.  We arrived home frozen but thankful.

We were invited to a delicious dinner at one of the missionary couples in our building, no traveling involved.  They live one flight of steps down from us.  Afterwords, we all had tickets to a concert at Carnegie Hall.  We thought that by evening the buses would be on schedule . Wrong again. It took 2 taxis for the 6 of us, but me made it there in time.  The piano concert was 41 year old Wibi Soerjadi from the Netherlands. The two hour concert was wonderful.  I didn't know that 2 hands could produce so much music from one piano.  It was a delight to listen when he played.  He demonstrated the 3 hand technique. Under normal playing the left hand might not be used to its fullest extent all of the time, nor the right hand either.  Therefore when you make use of this idle time for the hands, you have the equivalent of an extra hand.  When he played with just the left hand it sounded like most musicians using both hands.  We he used both hands it was incredible. After the concert we decided to slosh home because it wasn't too cold (35 degrees) and it was so pretty.  The streets are still lit up with Christmas lights in the trees.  We went by Central Park and it looked like a winter wonderland.

Central Park Earlier In The Day